


Fireside Confessions

by teyla



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Found Family, Friendship, Gen, POV Duck Newton, TAZ Amnesty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:35:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21919981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teyla/pseuds/teyla
Summary: Duck, Ned, and Aubrey all can't sleep. They each have their separate reasons, but turns out companionship is a cure for many (if not all) things.
Relationships: Edmund "Ned" Chicane & Aubrey Little & Duck Newton
Comments: 10
Kudos: 53
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Fireside Confessions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [intrikate88](https://archiveofourown.org/users/intrikate88/gifts).



> Dear recipient, happy holidays! Thank you for requesting Amnesty and giving me an incentive to write about these guys. I hope this hits the spot for you and gives you warm friendship and holiday feelings. All the best for 2020!
> 
> Thank you to [findmeinthealps](https://archiveofourown.org/users/findmeinthealps/) for the quick beta.

There is something about snow that silences the world.

Duck has that thought as he pads down Amnesty Lodge's darkened staircase, and immediately feels dumb about it. He's no Ernest Hemingway; he would do well to leave wordsmithing to people who know what they're doing. In the privacy of his own mind, though, that's what he's coming up with. A layer of snow comes down overnight, it'll muffle all sounds and turn the forest into a stage waiting for the start of a performance. That's what he feels like any time his job has him out on a snowy morning—like a prima ballerina stepping out for a solo, carrying the responsibility of drawing all eyes and ears. Whenever he's out there, he wonders what the deer and chipmunks and possums think of him. Swan Lake or Godzilla? Being honest, probably the latter.

Right now, he's not in the forest, and it's not a snowy morning. It's a snowy night, one of the snowiest Kepler's seen in a while—enough so that Mama told them to stay over, free of charge, in two of the open rooms at the Lodge. Duck took some convincing. It's not that he wants to break his neck driving down the mountain in unsafe weather conditions, but he's got Buster Keaton back home. Buster's had fifteen long years to exercise his feline vocal cords. That cat screaming for dinner makes a grade school's string orchestra sound like a New Age meditation aid, and Duck would rather not get evicted for noise disturbance. After some dithering, though, he got through on Leo Tarkesian's landline. Leo assured him that the beast would be fed, so Duck agreed to stay.

Doesn't mean he can sleep. How do people sleep in beds that aren't theirs? It's unnatural.

The fire's gone out and the lobby is dipped in semi-darkness, but he knows soon enough that he's not alone. Behind the bar, a clinking of glasses ruins the silence. He wanders over and expects to see Barclay. When Ned's head pops up, he has to concede that Ned's a much likelier candidate to be found rooting around in a dark place he's not meant to be in.

"Duck! Hey."

That’s way too loud. Clearly, Ned's got no problem with drawing eyes and ears. Duck clambers up on a bar stool. "Ned." He gives him a nod, hesitates as his eyes catch on Ned holding a whiskey tumbler in one and Mama's half-empty bottle of single malt in the other hand. Three am is no time to get into a discussion about hospitality abuse, but— "You planning to pay for that?"

Ned purses his lips. "Entirely depends. You planning to have one?"

Duck exhales, rubs his hands over his face. He's not a whiskey man, but a glass of _something_ sounds good. "Mama got any house red down there?"

Ned smiles a satisfied smile, as if being a bad influence were his utmost goal in life, and produces a bottle of Pinot Noir. Duck watches the dark liquid splash into a glass. "Why have you got the lights off?"

"Force of habit." Ned shrugs. "Besides, don't need them."

The fridges under the back counter feature glass fronts and throw a gloomy, blue light across the floor. It's enough to see by, though it's giving Ned the same cold shine that Minerva tends to bring with her when she shows up. Looking at it for too long, Duck feels a shiver run down his back. It's like standing out in the snow without a coat.

"It'd just be the normal thing to do, turning them on. But who cares about normal in this place, right?"

That earns him a pause. "Something keeping you up, friend?"

He hunches over his glass, mulls that question over. It's not even that he doesn't want to tell Ned, it's just that he has no idea how to put this feeling into words. Maybe it really is just the unfamiliarity of the Lodge's guest room. "Could ask you the same thing."

"I like the quiet." Ned waves a hand at the room. He's smiling a smile so tender that Duck turns around to see if there's anything specific he's looking at. There's just the lobby, though, a group of comfy leather armchairs gathered around a cold fireplace. "I like to be in places not meant for me and imagine all the things I could've been."

"Like the proprietor of a ski lodge doubling as a refugee shelter for cryptids?"

"Mhm, yeah. Or a curator for the Smithsonian. Or the rich owner of a beautiful mansion."

Duck breathes a snort. "I feel like I'm learning more about your past than is safe for me to know."

Ned leans his elbows on the counter. "Your turn."

"Hm?"

"To answer the question."

"Oh, right." He doesn't think this is entirely fair—Ned's answer was satisfying enough, but that's because Ned excels in talking circles around answers he doesn't want to give. There's no telling if Ned just shared something real, or made something up because it sounded good. Sometimes Duck wishes he had that skill; it seems useful. "I miss my cat."

That's not a lie, though it gets him about as much confusion as attempting to tell one does. Ned's brow furrows. "You can't sleep because you miss your cat?"

"Yeah." He sniffs, chews on the inside of his lip as he feels his ears grow hot. "It's just, we have a li'l ritual, right? I feed him dinner, brush my teeth 'n all that, he'll do his thing where he sits by the door and watches till I'm in bed. Then he'll come up 'n curl up on the other pillow. That's where he sleeps."

"Right." Ned's scrutinizing him, eyes hidden in the shadows falling across the bar. "So you're not home, and you worry your cat can't sleep?"

"Nah, he—he's a cat, he don't give a fuck." Duck shrugs, takes a drink as he thinks his way through his answer. "It's a routine. No good reason to interrupt a routine. They're natural, you know? You look at all the creatures of the forest, they got routines. They're not gonna budge. Bear's not gonna decide to sleep in a different cave one night, no sir. Why go somewhere he doesn't know? Safer to stay home."

Ned smirks. "Our routines have been kinda fucked with, I'll give you that. Nothing like finding out you've been neighbors with Bigfoot for the longest time, huh?"

"Yeah, or that you can shoot fire from your hands." Duck stares down at his own palms, imagines what that would be like. "I can take a few good hits, but conjuring fire? That's a whole 'nother ball game."

"Handy in a fight, though."

Duck concedes with a nod, and Ned reaches for the wine bottle. "One thing, though."

"What's that?"

"This isn't somewhere you don't know." Ned uses the bottle to motion at the room. "You know this place, you know the folks here. Pretty sure it could be some version of home, if you wanted it to be."

Again, Ned's saying this shit with a levity that makes Duck doubt his sincerity. He glances around, eyes landing on the fireplace. "If it were my home, the fire wouldn't be out. You can't just let a fire go out, it's a whole-ass production to get it started back up."

"Good thing you know someone who can shoot fire from their hands, then."

That's not Ned. It's a voice from the stairs, bright and cheerful. Duck jumps, and looks over just as a flash of orange light makes his eyes water. "Jeezy creezy, Aubrey. Sneaking up much?"

"Eh." Aubrey shrugs, clearly feeling not at all guilty for eavesdropping. She's wearing an Amnesty Lodge robe with a set of PJs underneath, and her hand's on fire. She wanders over to the hearth. "Ned, get a couple of logs from the pile in the back room, will you?"

There's a second request from Aubrey for a strong and fruity drink. Ned starts fussing with bottles, so Duck's the one who heads into the back to grab some firewood. As he returns, he's struck by the difference the budding fire makes. The gloomy dark is being chased off by a soft, flickering glow, and it may be his imagination, but the lobby already feels a few degrees warmer.

Aubrey waves at him from where she's curled up in one corner of the couch. Ned's settled in an armchair nearby. Duck piles the logs on the fire, nudging them in carefully to avoid stifling the flames.

"Not too bad a production after all, right?"

"Well, you're cheating making fire with your hands. We don't all have that advantage."

"You're lucky I'm on your team, then."

She's smiling, and he returns it as he sits down next to her. Thoughtful friend that he is, Ned's brought over Duck's glass. "So what's your story of why you can't sleep?"

"Cramps." Aubrey shrugs. It's only then that Duck notices the pillow she's got tucked against her belly. "Not too bad, but too annoying to sleep. Did I miss your guys' confessions? What were they?"

"Ah." Duck glances over at Ned, whose face is a mask of neutrality. "Nothing, really. Nothing important."

"You sure?"

Aubrey's eying him in that way she has that makes Duck feel like she's leafing through his brain like a book. He doesn't normally enjoy it much. Right now, he finds he appreciates the opening she's giving him. Even if he's not gonna use it.

"I'm sure." He tips his glass in her direction. "Want me to get you some Advil or something?"

"I'm good." She sips on her drink, barely avoiding stabbing herself in the face with the tiny umbrella that's adorning her drink's pineapple garnish. Ned went all out. "So, what's the next monster we're gonna fight? Any bets?"

"Zombies." Ned holds up a finger. "Gotta be zombies. I have thought too long and hard about what to do during a zombie apocalypse not to put it to good use."

Aubrey laughs. She glances over at Duck, who takes a moment to realize that she's expecting his input. He thinks about it for a moment before he shrugs. "Honestly, I don't care what it is. Not as long as I've got the two of you backing me up. Bring it on, you know."

Aubrey coos in delight, and so does Ned, though with less sincerity. Duck feels his ears grow hot again, but he doesn't try to backpedal.

There's no reason to. It's the truth, after all. Couldn't be anything else.


End file.
